When at length she sat beside her husband in the immense, silent audience, listening to such splendid harmonies as only once or twice in her lifetime she had heard before, her heart was far too full for words. He did not ask them of her, understanding something of what was passing in her mind, though not even his more than ordinary powers of sympathy could have guessed at all that held her breathless through those hours of supreme delight.
Certain words of a Psalm, which she had often heard her father quote, came into her mind and repeated themselves over and over. She had smiled with a bitter irony sometimes when she had heard him speak them in a tone of utter thankfulness, while she had been quite unable to imagine how he could use them of himself. But now—now—surely they applied to her!
Along with the sweep of the conductor's baton, with the rise and surge of one of the greatest of the symphonies, ran the triumphant words of the singer of old time: "Thou hast set my feet in a large room."
Surely it was a large room into which, from a cramped and restricted one, she had emerged. She would do small honour to the devout life which had so long been lived beside her if she should fail to give the praise to the Maker of all life, who, according to her father's firm belief, had known from the beginning all for which He had been so wisely fitting her.
CHAPTER XXVI
SALT WATER
It was the tenth day of April. A great ship was making ready to sail; she lay like some inert monster at her pier, while all about her, within and without, was apparent commotion yet really ordered haste, the customary scene of bustling activity.
Few passengers had yet arrived, for the time of sailing was still some hours away. One party of three, however, had just driven down to the very gangway, allowed by some special privilege a closer approach than most at this hour. The reason was apparent when the party alighted, for one of its number was clearly an invalid, a frail-looking man with curly gray hair, who leaned upon the arm of a much younger man with a keen, distinguished face. The third person was a young woman, the sort of young woman who looks as if no buffeting wind could blow her away, because she would be sure to face it with delight, her eager face only glowing the brighter for the conflict.